


Regroup, Relax, Relapse

by iridescentglow



Category: Spooks
Genre: Multi, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-02
Updated: 2010-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:11:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentglow/pseuds/iridescentglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo finally takes Zaf up on his offer of a place to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Regroup, Relax, Relapse

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers**: #4.10, 'Diana'

**3.**

Jo arrived on Zaf's doorstep four days after Adam's death. She snuffled slightly in greeting, and he stepped aside to let her in.

"My flatmate doesn't understand why I'm crying all the time. She keeps asking me what's wrong." Jo paused to stare hard at the white foyer wall. "I think she thinks I'm having a nervous breakdown." She let out a brittle burst of laughter. "Maybe I am having a nervous breakdown. I don't know what it feels like."

The two of them shuffled through to the open-plan living space that incorporated lounge and kitchen. The artistically-blank walls glowed in the flat's soft lighting. "God, this really is a nice place," Jo chattered mindlessly. "Much nicer than mine. Beth and I—my flatmate—we sort of ran it into the ground. Entropy, whatever. You don't weed the garden one weekend and suddenly it's all overgrown and it's too much bother to fix it.

"You're sure you don't mind me moving in?" Jo turned to look at Zaf suddenly. The strange intensity of her racoon eyes made his throat tighten. He barely managed a grunt and a shake of his head.

Zaf walked over to the kitchen area. "Glad to have the company," he murmured, belatedly—untruthfully. Lately he couldn't seem to figure out whether he wanted to be alone or with people; busy with too much to do, or idle and entirely up inside his own head. In truth, each new state seemed just as bad as the last.

"Do you want something to drink?" He opened up one of the cupboards, mindlessly yanking out china cups. "Tea? ...something else?"

Jo's face cracked into a half smile. "Maybe something else. My mum has always been a great believer in the healing power of a cup of tea, but—" Her voice faltered. She paused to exhale slowly and then mustered another smile. "How about some vodka? I feel like we should be drinking brandy or something, but"—she screwed up her face—"I don't really like the taste."

Zaf sloshed an indiscriminate amount of Absolut into each of the teacups. Jo's hand was shaking when she reached out to grab hers.

"It doesn't feel like he's gone. You know?" she said, between sips.

"Maybe he's not," Zaf replied.

Jo squinted up at him. A thread of sarcasm lifted her voice. "Is this a philosophical thing? A tree falling. Cat in a box."

He smiled. "Nahh. I just mean—Adam Carter. That's just what the service made him. Took me a while to realise that I didn't really know him. Maybe we don't really know anyone."

"Well that's just fucking depressing," Jo said clearly. "I knew him. I _know_ him. And I know I..."

"You didn't love him," Zaf corrected her gently. "You loved the idea of him."

"Don't try and bullshit me into feeling better, Zaf." She spat out the words angrily, catharsis reverberating through her voice. "If a tree falls and no one hears, it still fucking falls. This isn't a dream. And Adam Carter was real to me. And yeah, I loved him.

"You loved him, too," she continued. "Philosophising isn't going to make it go away." She finished with a rush of breath.

The vodka had created two pink spots in her cheeks. He leaned forward and kissed one of them. "You're right," he whispered against her cheek. He kissed her again and then pulled away.

"When I heard the knock at the door," Zaf continued in a low voice, "I thought it was him."

Jo nodded. _Yeah_, she mouthed weakly. She finished the last of her vodka and set the teacup down on the worktop. She moved closer to him, slipping into his personal space. She trailed her fingertips down his chest, her nails catching on the fabric of his shirt. Her eyes flickered across his face. He felt the same sudden constriction in his throat at the concentration of her attention on him.

"Didn't come here for tea and sympathy," she said, blinking to clear her eyes of tears.

He swallowed hard, and leaned in to kiss her on the lips.

*

**2.**

Jo's hair smelled like gunsmoke. Adam's hands were rough with dirt. The sensation of Adam's fingers pressed against the nape of his neck reminded Zaf irresistibly of being forced to the ground. He felt the dim, giddy pain of lack of oxygen as Jo assaulted him with teeth and tongue and glorious, unrelenting kisses.

The afternoon's drizzle was beginning to strengthen into a steady thrum of rain against the car windows. The surrounding countryside was heavy with stillness. Jo writhed easily on Zaf's lap in the passenger seat. Adam was in the driver's seat—as always. Someone—Adam, probably—finally succeeded in manoeuvring the seat controls, and the passenger seat clunked abruptly backwards. The sudden jolt of pain seemed to reawaken a dozen bruises from the day's op. Zaf moaned against Jo's tongue.

"Aw, poor baby." Adam murmured the words against his neck—rich sarcasm transforming itself into the wet heat of Adam's mouth opening against his skin.

Jo finally pulled away, rising above him. The areolas of her breasts were just visible, where her clothing had been yanked down, exposing the length of her pale throat. She laughed, and it seemed a little menacing. The brief glance she exchanged with Adam was hot with release.

"...the bad guys hurt you, Zaf?" Jo asked, with fake concern. Her hands had slipped under his shirt, her fingers coaxing at the top button of his trousers.

"Fuck off," Zaf muttered distractedly, caught between angry annoyance and utter submission to Jo's roving hands. "Did either of you get your head kicked in by five blokes today?"

"I think it was just the two blokes, mate," Adam corrected, his warm mockery rolling across Zaf's shoulders. Zaf's shirt buttons ripped open, and Adam dragged his tongue along the jagged bones of his shoulder blades, teasing at an emerging row of bruises. Zaf winced, but Adam only pressed harder. All of his patience seemed to have been burned up in the field.

As Jo's hands tugged at his boxers and Adam's tongue dipped lower, Zaf wondered when days like this had begun to seem normal.

*

**1.**

"Listen, mate"—Zaf caught Adam awkwardly by the arm, and then let his hand drop—"I just wanted to say..."

Adam half-turned to look at him. The cultivated blankness of his expression had recently begun to seem more and more like hardness. "What?" he said.

"If you ever want to talk. You know. I'm here." Zaf cringed internally at the triteness of his words. Even if Adam were to suddenly decide to confide in him, Zaf had no idea what he was supposed to say in this kind of situation. _Sorry your wife died violently and horribly before your eyes. Tough shit. There, there._

Adam moved his head—it might just as easily have been a tic as a nod. "I don't," he said in a low voice. "Want to talk."

Zaf watched as he walked away across the grid.

*

**blastoff.**

"I mean it." A smile flashed across Adam's lips.

Zaf suppressed his own grin. "Fuck off." When he tried to walk away, Adam grasped him by the shoulders and turned him around.

"I mean it," he repeated, his hands still resting heavily on Zaf's shoulders, "don't sleep with the new girl." He adopted a suddenly stern expression. "It'll get complicated."

Zaf spluttered. "More complicated than rescuing some woman from her abusive husband in Syria?"

Adam narrowed his eyes, but the smile reappeared. He levelled his voice into a stage whisper. "It's okay." He leaned close to Zaf. "Jo fancies me, anyway."

Adam was already striding away when Zaf exploded with, "She does not!"

Zaf watched as Adam caught Fiona around the waist, taking her ostentatiously in his arms and dipping her slightly as he kissed her full on the mouth.

"Bastard," Zaf muttered good-naturedly. His eyes slid to Jo, who was watching Adam jealously.


End file.
